Announcing the Judges for the 2026 International Debut Novel Competition

 

The Irish Writers Centre is delighted to today announce the judges for the 2026 installment of its flagship annual literary initiative, the International Debut Novel Competition.

The competition awards twelve unpublished novelists with the opportunity to pitch their novels to world-class publishers and literary agents. This year, the competition attracted a record number of entries from a record number of countries. Judging is currently underway, and all applicants will be contacted later in the summer with the outcome of their submission.

We are delighted to welcome to our panel of judges:

 

Kevin Curran‘s third novel, Youth, was published to critical acclaim by the Lilliput Press in 2023. It was an Irish Times, Sunday Independent & RTE Culture Best Book of 2023. The paperback edition of Youth was published February 2025. He is a secondary school teacher in his hometown of Balbriggan.

 

Tanya Farrelly is the author of five books. Her debut fiction collection When Black Dogs Sing was named winner of the Kate O’ Brien Award 2017 and Nobody Needs to Know was published by Arlen House in 2021. Two psychological thrillers: The Girl Behind the Lens and When Your Eyes Close were published by Harper Collins, London. She holds a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from Bangor University, Wales and was appointed Writer-in-Residence at NUI Galway in 2021. She teaches creative writing at the Irish Writers Centre, the People’s College and the American College. She is the editor of two anthologies: The Music of What Happens (New Island Books, 2020) and Take Six: Six Irish Women Writers (Dedalus Books, 2025) Her latest book The Marionette and the Maestro was published by Arlen House in October 2025. She divides her time between Wicklow and Kerry where she lives with her husband and fellow writer David Butler and their two dogs Mr Shelby and Jodie.

 

Aingeala Flannery is the author of The Amusements, which won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2023 and the John McGahern Prize. Her short stories and essays have appeared in The Irish Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Paper Visual Art, and Winter Papers, and have been broadcast on RTÉ Radio One. Aingeala is deputy publisher of The Dublin Review. She is the current Kildare Arts Writer-in-Residence at Maynooth University.  She was a winner of the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair in 2018.

 

Madeleine Keane is Literary Editor of the Sunday Independent. She has written and broadcast on books, publishing and travel, regularly judges literary awards, and presents at arts festivals and events. She lectures on writing at UCD and the Irish Writers Centre. She is Chair of Children’s Books Ireland.

 

Liz McSkeane is a writer, publisher and teacher. In 1999, she won the Hennessy New Irish Writer Award, and in 2016 her debut novel, Canticle, was a winner in the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair competition. She is the author of two novels, a collection of short stories and four poetry collections. She is Director of Turas Press, which she founded in 2017. Since then, Turas Press has published more than thirty titles by sixteen authors. An experienced teacher and facilitator, she holds a PhD in Education and teaches regularly at the Irish Writers Centre, Dublin College Blackrock and other venues. She works closely with writers through her publishing and editorial activities.

 

Kerry Neville is the author of the memoir Momma May Be Mad, and two collections of stories, Necessary Lies and Remember to Forget Me. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Gettysburg Review, TriQuarterly, Brevity, The Washington Post, The Irish Times, and elsewhere. Her fiction and nonfiction have been named Notables in Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays. She was a Fulbright Fellow at University of Limerick in Ireland, where she was visiting faculty in the M.A. Creative Writing Program. She lives in Milledgeville, Georgia, and teaches at Georgia College and State University.

 

Catherine Prasifka is the bestselling author of two novels, None of This Is Serious and This Is How You Remember It. Her work has been translated into French, Portuguese, and Turkish. In 2024 she was appointed as the Writer Fellow for Trinity College Dublin. Most recently, she was the John Broderick Writer-in-Residence in Athlone. She currently teaches creative writing at Maynooth University, and writes a weekly column for the Irish Independent. The Guardian has described her work on the lives of young people and social media as ‘essential’.

 

Fíona Scarlett is from Dublin but now living in Co. Kildare, with her husband and two children. Her debut novel Boys Don’t Cry was published by Faber & Faber in April 2021 and was an instant Irish Times Bestseller. It was shortlisted for Newcomer of the Year in the Irish Book Awards, the Kate O’Brien first novel award and was an Arts Council Literature Bursary Award recipient. She was named as one of An Post Irish Book Awards ‘New Voices 20 Best New Irish Writers’ in 2024 and her second novel May All Your Skies Be Blue was published in February 2025. She is currently adapting Boys Don’t Cry for screen in conjunction with Vico Films, alongside working on her third novel. She is also a passionate creative writing educator, with a true commitment to accessibility, to dismantling barriers that prevent people from seeing themselves as writers.